Dorothy Brush "Random Thoughts" Published Dec. 11, 2002

The Other Wise Man
draws me every year

One space of my bookshelves is devoted to Christmas books. There I find many pages of inspiration about the season, but there is one very small book - just 72 pages - that carries a powerful message. I return to it year after year.

Long before I owned this slim volume I was introduced to the story by my seventh-grade English teacher. Her classes always looked forward to the final minutes of her Friday class because she read to us. In December Mrs. Nye read us Henry van Dyke's The Story of the Other Wise Man.

"It is a story," the author said, "not to be found among the ancient lore of the East nor is it written in any other book." He continued, "I do not know where it came from - out of the air perhaps." Van Dyke explained that during long nights when he was tormented with pain and facing the thought that his work in the world may be almost ended, although he knew it was not nearly finished, was when the story began to unfold. He said, "Even certain sentences came to me complete and unforgettable, clear-cut like a cameo. I heard fragments of the tale in the Hall of Dreams, in the palace of the Heart of Man."

Van Dyke was the most prominent of a talented family. Born in Germantown, PA in 1852, he died in 1933 at the age of 81. Educated at Princeton University, he went on to serve as the pastor of a United Congregational Church in Rhode Island and then as the minister for the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City. He returned to Princeton as a professor of English literature. President Woodrow Wilson appointed him to be minister to the Netherlands and Luxembourg from 1913 to 1916. In World War I he served as a Navy chaplain. After the war he returned to Princeton but stayed active in the Presbyterian Church.

He wrote many books, essays, short stories and even a play but The Story of the Other Wise Man lived on to become a Christmas classic. Van Dyke said though the story of Artaban, the fourth wise man, came to him suddenly - he had to study much ancient history and travel to far lands before he finished the story in 1895.

In the preface he writes, "You know the story of the Three Wise Men of the East, and how they traveled from far away to offer their gifts at the manger-cradle in Bethlehem. But have you ever heard the story of the Other Wise Man who also saw the star in its rising, and set out to follow it yet did not arrive with his brethren in the presence of the young child Jesus." The story continues following Artaban's pilgrimage until after 33 years his journey ended as he found the King.

In my copy of the book, Leo Buscaglia wrote an introduction telling how as a poor Italian kid he loved to read and spent much time in the library. When he was about 8 the librarian gave him The Other Wise Man as a Christmas gift and he found it to be a magical tale he read every year thereafter.

Just this year the 1984 edition has been reissued and a reviewer told of his love for the book. He remembered his big sister reading it to him every Christmas. No matter the age of the listener or reader there is a never-to-be-forgotten message that grows even more meaningful over the years.

· · ·
Dorothy Copus Brush is a Fairfield Glade resident and Crossville Chronicle staffwriter whose column is published each Wednesday.